WRTC-96 Press Release #6

[AA6KX at aol.com]

In a message dated 96-03-12 21:21:15 EST, Skoch92707 at AOL.COM writes:

> After all, who else could possibly benefit from a private contest 
>but the "who's-who"? Will we finally find out who the best
>contesters really are? Did we ever really care? 

I think the writer of these lines has missed the whole point of the World
Radiosport Team Championship.  If there is that perception out there that
this is a private party, though, then perhaps we should take a minute to
review the rationale of this whole event.

Every few years tens of thousands of people from around the globe gather to
watch the world's greatest athletes compete in the olympics.  Those of us who
are mere spectators, and I'll hazard the guess that that covers most of us on
this reflector, enjoy watching the olympics because we admire the beauty and
grace the great athletes display as they compete with each other for top
honors.  I doubt many in those olympic audiences feel excluded from the
competition, since they know the odds of their even equaling the last place
finisher in any event are slim indeed.  Instead, those spectators are pleased
to be able to observe true excellence in action and to mingle with other
people from other countries who take similar joy in watching the truly great.

The very same thing holds true, I think, with the World Radiosport Team
Championship.  We have just completed the most far-ranging and comprehensive
selection process imaginable to come up with a list of the 104 top contesters
in the world, all of whom will gather at one time in one place to put their
skills on display in a common setting.  Literally hundreds of people were
involved in this selection process.  There were checks and balances at every
stage of the process to ensure that the resulting choices were as objective
and impartial as could be.  In general, candidates had 4 sequential chances
to become a competitor at WRTC:  (1) as the team leader selected by their
country's national contesting organization or by one of the clubs designated
by WRTC, Inc. to chose a team leader; (2) as the parterner selected by the
team leader chosen per the above; (3) as one of the 10 "wild card" team
leaders chosen by the panel of 21 eminent contesters who have agreed to be
judges at this event; or (4) as the partner selected by one of the wild card
team leaders.  This was anything but an insider's game:  I don't see how the
selection process could have been any more open than it was.

When July arrives and the WRTC competitors come to San Francisco, we are
going to have the olympics of the contesting sport live and on display.
 W6OAT has already dubbed this the "Woodstock of Contesting", and indeed the
number of non-competitors who are coming here just to rub elbows with the
world's great and share in the week-long run of parties and beer-busts is
straining our hotel's facilities.  Most of those people know they would be
lucky indeed to equal whatever team turns out to be the last-place finisher
in the competition.  Still, they can admire the skill of the truly top
operators and are sure to learn something that will help them in their own
efforts just from watching and talking with the competitors.  I don't see
this as any different from the Olympics.

What is different from the Olympics, though, is that here even those who
can't come to the Bay Area will still have a chance to "watch" the
competitors from their own stations.  And, in one of the unique aspects of
our hobby, they even have a chance to interact with the athletes and
direcctly be a part of it all.   

As far as the financing is concerned, it is worth pointing out that every one
of the competitors is paying his own way to come here.  We are not out trying
to raise money in order to provide a freebie vacation to people who
habitually drop by exotic tropical islands for radio fun anyway.  The money
is going toward parties, dinners, awards for the competitors, prizes for the
people who get on the air and make contacts with the competitors during the
competition, etc., etc.  This is the Woodstock of Contesting, and we're going
to have a big old love fest this summer.  You're all invited; this is not a
private party.

WORLD RADIOSPORT TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP, INC.

/s/ Bruce Sawyer, AA6KX
Chairman of the Board and Chief Operating Officer

(Please excuse the pompous-sounding title.  I'm told by our volunteer
attorney that I have to sign everything this way in order to maintain our
corporate status and thereby protect myself from the other #%*&@! lawyers.)

>From aa4lr at radio.org (Bill Coleman AA4LR)  Wed Mar 13 15:40:06 1996
From: aa4lr at radio.org (Bill Coleman AA4LR) (Bill Coleman AA4LR)
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 11:40:06 -0400
Subject: ON4UN and his tubes
Message-ID: <v01540b02ad6c99bf96d0@[206.28.194.40]>

>It's time to go back to the 813's, please eliminate blower noise.
>Nothing like a quiet shack and all your regrets may be over.

Why have a blower at all? Aren't there adequate conduction-cooled tubes out
there.

For that matter, why aren't there more solid-state amplifiers? Certainly in
the nearly 50 years since the invention of the transistor engineering a
solid-state amp can't be THAT difficult. It may require more protection
circuits, but hey, the recent Alpha's have all that.

>            Dr. Bafoofnik ****

WHO is this guy?

Bill Coleman, AA4LR      Mail: aa4lr at radio.org
Quote: "Not in a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901



>From junger at mtn.er.usgs.gov (John Unger)  Wed Mar 13 17:58:40 1996
From: junger at mtn.er.usgs.gov (John Unger) (John Unger)
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 96 12:58:40 EST
Subject: SUMMARY: small-sized keyboards
Message-ID: <9603131758.AA24119 at mtn.er.usgs.gov.er.usgs.gov>


I received lots of good leads for getting smaller-sized keyboards
for use with IBM-PC type computers.  I've emailed the summary to
those who indicated that they wanted it.  If anyone else would like
to get a copy, drop me some email; I don't want to waste bandwidth
here and post it to everyone...  The summary is about 200 lines
long.

tnx to all es 73 - John, W3GOI